Blacks Turn Ambivalent Toward Affirmative Action

September 15, 1991|The New York Times

Without the strong arm of affirmative action, Renee Baldwin would not be a police officer in Cleveland, Carlyle Miller of Manhattan would have trained at a segregated medical school instead of an Ivy League college and Jay Walker, a Chicago lawyer, might not have suffered the pangs of uncertainty over why an East Coast law firm had hired him.

They are among the thousands of blacks who are the ambivalent children of affirmative action, the first generation to walk over the threshold of newly opened doors and to integrate the nation`s offices and classrooms.

Now in their mid-20s to mid-40s, they hold down jobs that their grandparents, as brilliant or educated as they might have been, could not have dreamed of.

And whether they have benefited from the programs or succeeded without them, their lives have been buffeted by a climate that, once accepting of affirmative action, has turned grudging and hostile toward not only the programs, but them, too.

In recent weeks, the nomination to the Supreme Court of perhaps the most prominent son and critic of affirmative action, Judge Clarence Thomas, has put the issue at center stage.

And voices of others in his generation are likely to loom even larger in the coming months as debate begins in Congress over the civil rights bill and as the 1992 presidential campaign begins.

For the most part, these are the reluctant defenders of affirmative action.

Many see affirmative action -- programs and policies intended to correct the effects of past discrimination in employment or education -- as an imperfect solution to racism, one that only gives them the chance they and their ancestors deserved all along.

Others say the price is too high and resent the presumptions of inferiority that the programs sometimes evoke.

But even those who have felt stigmatized by affirmative action offer painful arguments in favor of it: They see it as vital, but wish they could be assured of a fair shake without it.

In the Memphis Fire Department, for example, blatant racism that once prohibited black firefighters from sleeping in station beds reserved for whites also prevented the department`s few blacks from moving beyond the very lowest rungs.

Ulysses Jones says he would not have made lieutenant had a 1980 consent decree, settling a lawsuit brought by blacks against the city and the firefighters` union, not forced the department to award 20 percent of its promotions to minorities.

``They have made affirmative action a dirty word,`` said Jones, 40. ``For us, it`s a word that means fairness. You kept us down for 300 years, and now you have to pay. I look at it as insurance and assurance.``

But insurance has its price. Jones recalls bitter confrontations with white colleagues who were resentful when they were not ignoring him.

``They wouldn`t view you as a co-worker but as an infringement that was keeping their relatives from getting jobs,`` Jones said.